After the desolation of last week, it's time to show some resilience. Just like in crypto, the keys are diversification and cycle awareness. Destruction can become creation, death brings life, blah blah blah. In simple words, if you got bees, you should have chicken. If you have chicken, you should grow your own vegetable. It's like a holy trinity but more like a smelly trinity. Anyway... we've got 14 hives to inspect, clean and reset. The one I'll show you is from my garden, so you get the main idea.

The hives consist of 2 compartments, the main hive where the queen lays her eggs and the upper compartment where there is only honey. By chance, all the upper compartment seems good.

The main compartment on the other hand is full of rotten honey (main picture of this post) and needs to be taken out, I put the layer aside for now.

I even find a surprise below... the corpse of an Asian Hornet. It may be proof that my bees were adapting and learning thermal defense mechanism.

I let the chicken feast on the enemy and find more treats for them in the belly of the hives. Some larvae of Galleria mellonella that parasitized the wax.

Again, the chicken shows no mercy and piked them to death. Maggots's life ain't pretty. When everything is out of the hive I inspect it, makes repair and change some pieces if needed. Then comes the fun part... disinfection !

When every piece (except wax layer, of course) is disinfected by fire, we can assemble back everything and put new layers inside. Remember to let the entry of the hive open. A wild swarm could find your hive attractive and come naturally inside. It is what happen last time in this hive. My neighbors are still talking about it...

So, back to our rotten honey. I cannot let it all go to waste, so I give back to the earth. I cut it and put it where I'm going to plant some vegetables.

Finally, all the wax without honey are collected and cooked with water until it's all melted. Once cooled off, solidified and separated from water, I clean it and use it to treat wood or make candles.

You have it all. Zero waste, everything is transformed, but it takes a lot of time and this year is x14 times...  Nobody show you this when you start your beekeeper adventure, so if this dull part doesn't bother you, you'll be fine.

Next stop is 12 April where the real action begin. We have some connection to buy a couple of swarm and transfer them into our hives.

Don't forget to support your local artisanal beekeeper by buying him honey. Don't go to superstore, it's just liquid sugar.

Until next time !